After work, I usually eat my dinner while watching the news. Tonight, I cooked shrimp and brown rice that Levy had bought this morning. Normally I wouldn't eat something like this, but I need to recuperate the energy I lost during practicing all day.  

While watching the news, a grisly story caught my attention. “In other news, the body of a man was found in Community Park. The cause of death seemed to be that of some sort of animal. This is the eighth body discovered across the city, so far police have no leads…”

Anybody with two brain cells knows that this string of murders is not caused by no animal. The only predator animal liberty city has are Blue Foxes, and those things are not big enough to kill eight people.

“I can’t believe a fifteen-year-old boy would stay at home watching the news instead of going out and socializing.” Harper teased. “Could it be that you have no friends?” 

“I have plenty of friends, Harper. I just want to stay informed about my city, especially since I am helping you two out. And I think that this has something to do with Marceline.”

“It’s possible,” Noel said. “But we won’t know for sure until we investigate all of the locations where the victims were killed.”

“You want me to check all eight of them?!” I merely spit out the water that I was drinking.

“Not all at once. But if my suspicions are correct, then we will only need to visit one of the sites.”

“Then I suggest we visit the most recent attack site. If there are going to be any clues, it’s going to be there.”

After dinner, I cleared everything up and put the dishes away. I suited up and exited my building out in the back which leads to an alley. I looked around to see if the cost was clear and when I was satisfied, I jumped onto the roof.

It will be easier for me to fly to Community Park from my apartment. Oh yeah, I discovered that I can fly using fire. I can also get around creating ice tracks but I am trying to stay incognito. Flying is easy, it’s basically like walking except it’s way faster. And it’s better than taking public transportation because it's faster and free. The only problem is trying not to burn anything down or not to be seen by anyone.

I jumped off of the roof and immediately produced fire from my feet, propelling me up and forward. Currently, I can fly as a rocket (this is only a guess on my part) but if I practice enough, then I can maybe even go faster.

It took me a whopping two minutes to get to the park, which saves me about seventeen minutes if I choose to walk there. Now that I am here, I can begin my investigation. Thanks to the recent murders, the park is nearly empty. Not that I don’t really blame anybody for staying home, but it defeats the purpose of Liberty City is known as “The city that never sleeps.”

As soon as we can deal with this, the sooner people can get on with their lives. I honestly have no clue why none of the local superheroes have been able to solve this case. Hopefully, I can be of use to them and get rid of this deranged murderer off of the streets.

I made my way to the crime scene where the body was found. Police tape cut off the scene of the crime, but I don’t need to look for any physical clues. Noel and Harper returned and began searching around for anything useful.

“Anything you are looking for specifically?” I asked, not wanting to feel useless.

“Residue of supernatural energy, if we find any then it would confirm my hypothesis. Ah ha!”

“What is it?” I said, standing next to Noel.

“Demonic Mana Residue, take a look for yourself.”

She placed her hand on my shoulder and black stardust appeared in my vision. They danced in the air like dust in an old room.

“OK, so what could’ve done this?” I asked.

“A lot of things, but it was most likely familiar to a demon,” Harper said.

“What the hell is a familiar?”

“A familiar is a servant who is summoned by a wizard or any other supernatural entity. They come in all shapes and sizes, with animals being the most common. Other popular familiars or imps and zombies.” Harper explained.

“More importantly,” Noel interjected. “This is a familiar that our older sister had summoned.”

“How can you tell Marceline?”

“Every living creature has a unique signature tied to their life force. Marceline is this black dust substance that smells like licorice.”

Now that Noel mentions it, I have had the smell of licorice lingering in my nose since I started seeing the black dust.

“Well now that we have the suspect, how do we track this familiar down?” 

“Follow the trail of the dust of course,” Harper said, flashing a smile at me.

With the help of Noel and Harper, I started following the trail of black dust. The trail led me out of the park and to Vanderbilt Center. Turning the corner, whoever left this trail had somehow scaled one of the buildings. If I want to continue to follow this lead, I have to go up there.

I flew up to the top where the trail continued. For all my years of living in Liberty city, I would never imagine being on top of the Vanderbilt building late at night.

This is no time to stop and admire my new abilities, if I want to prevent this monster from killing any more innocents, then I will have to pick up the pace. But I can’t fly or else I wouldn’t be able to see the black dust. I don’t have much of a choice but to jump from rooftop to rooftop.

I had to take a deep breath before I could do a jump. If I miss the landing or overshoot it, then I would join the Frosts in the afterlife. There’s no time like the present.

Getting a running start, I jumped off of the roof I was standing on and landed on the next one. It was a perfect landing, as I tripped and rolled to a stop. It didn’t actually hurt at all, probably because my body is similar to a half-demon like the Frosts. Maybe I was a little too scared before, but I was just a normal guy yesterday.

Continuing to follow the trail, it finally came to a stop and an old abandoned warehouse.

“Careful Ken, you could be walking straight into a nest!”

“I’ll keep that in mind, but what’s a nest?”

“A nest is where a group of demons of Strigoi lives and hunt in the same territory. It’s rare, but when it does occur it can be a disaster.”

“When a nest is from, a hunter is dispatched to destroy it,” Harper said.

I will save the question I had for later. I have to put an end to these murders. Since Noel warned me about a potential nest, I decided to go from the roof.

Upon reaching the roof, I spotted an opening in the window ceiling. I crawled into the opening, careful not to cut myself on any broken glass. When I got inside, my nose was assaulted by a horrible smell. It stunk so bad that I almost gagged.

“Oh dear lord,” Noel whispered, covering her nose. I didn’t know that they could still smell things.

“Fucking hell, what is that smell?”

“Zombies!” Harper yelled.

Looking down from the beam I was standing on, I saw an entire horde of zombies shuffling about. Great, this thing just went from bad to shitting the bed.